


what do you fall for?

by tablrcloth



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Attempted Murder, Banter, Character Death, Character Study, Confrontations, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Family Dynamics, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hybrid Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Hypothermia, Not Canon Compliant, Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Realization, Sad with a Happy Ending, Self-Discovery, Self-Exile, Self-Reflection, Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, but im still a tubbo apologist, but its ok he gets better, lmanberg isnt portrayed in a good light, ranboo has bad memory:(, really morally grey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28230381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tablrcloth/pseuds/tablrcloth
Summary: Ranboo's having a great time in L'manberg. He's hanging out with friends, spending time with pets, aaaaand trying to murder Technoblade. Apparently. But does he really have to?Or, Ranboo is having a really tough time figuring out where he stands in a world of politics.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Ranboo & Alexis | Quackity, Ranboo & Clay | Dream, Ranboo & Floris | Fundy, Ranboo & Phil Watson, Ranboo & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Ranboo & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Wilbur Soot, Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Technoblade
Comments: 166
Kudos: 1502





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> as stated in my last fic, i'm writing about the characters on the Dream SMP, not the actual real life people. if any creators included are uncomfortable with this, i will take it down! comfort is my top priority.
> 
> i might write another chapter for this, but im not sure yet. this is based off of ranboos stream on december 16th, with a little bit of change. you'll see...
> 
> enjoy da read!!!

When Ranboo woke up in his comfortable house in L’manberg that fine morning, he thought today would be a good day. He really did! His bed was cool, the sheets recently cleaned, his cats sleeping next to him. He stood up and flung the curtains apart, revealing a clear blue sky, flecks of clouds smeared across the sky like stretched out cottonballs. The sun shone on the wooden planks of the boardwalk outside, and when Ranboo opened his front door and stepped onto his front porch, stretching, the sunlight bathed him in warmth.

So when he turned to his right, he did not expect to see a GUILLOTINE on the plaza.

He’s dumbfounded, his mouth open slightly in shock.

Ranboo immediately forgets the weather, his priorities much larger than simply hanging out with his cats and tending to the ice cream shop. His gait is quick as he crosses the stairs and hops onto the wood of the plaza, spruce creaking slightly. There’s a guillotine. In L’manberg. A country sworn off violence after experiencing so much of it.

 _Someone is going to die,_ he thinks. His mind is rather numb to the concept. He hasn’t seen a death since he joined this server. After Hypixel, he kind of thought it wouldn’t be something that he would have to experience anymore.

 _I_ _was wrong,_ he thinks, just as Tubbo, Fundy, and Quackity walk down the road to where Ranboo was standing.

“Rambow!” Tubbo calls. He turns quickly to see the cabinet, who were... wearing bloody aprons.

“Are you guys alright?” Ranboo says, jogging over to the three. That wasn’t their blood, right? Were they injured? Did they need help? He really wasn’t the best at any medical stuff, despite being rather famous for fighting back in Hypixel. Were warriors meant to know how to heal? Probably, but-

Quackity’s voice cuts through his thoughts. “Yes! Today’s going to be great.”

“You’re not-” Ranboo gestures at their aprons, taking notice of diamond axes hanging from the belt loops of each cabinet member, but Tubbo simply laughs and says, “This is just a getup, don’t worry. Big Q will explain it.”

“Explain...?” Ranboo trails off, looking at Quackity, who clears his throat and narrows his eyes.

“We can trust you, right _Rambow?”_ His mood changed quickly, and looked too bitter to just be out for a stroll with the rest of the cabinet, but Ranboo was clued into that as soon as he saw the blood on their clothes.

“Of- of course!” Ranboo chuckles, slightly miffed. Why _couldn’t_ he be trusted?

“Just making sure.” Quackity turns to Fundy, who mumbles something, and Quackity turns back to Ranboo.

“We have a plan today. We can’t discuss this in public, but it’s important. You promise you won’t betray us?”

“Be- betray...? Uh.” He’s feeling rather anxious with three people making direct eye contact with him; endermen weren’t really known for responding well to that, and despite being a hybrid, it still took its toll. Ranboo can’t remember the last time something bad happened due to his heritage; maybe it was for the best. “No, I wouldn’t.” _I don’t even know what I’m betraying_ , he thinks rather traitorously.

“Good!” Fundy butts in. “We can take him down to the meeting room then.”

“Meeting room?” Ranboo says quizzically, but Tubbo is already taking his hand and pulling him over to the ledge, pointing down through the water in the crater to a gap in the rock; tall enough for a human, but easy to miss. The hole must have been there for a while if it got covered with water, considering how much rain it took for the water to rise to this level in the crater.

“Through- _there?”_ Ranboo says incredulously, looking back at Fundy and Big Q. Quackity just crosses his arms and Fundy nods. “I, uh- okay.”

“Come on, Rambow,” Tubbo says, and walks down the boardwalk to the crater, where he wades through the water to the hole, before ducking his head in fully and swimming. Ranboo chuckles slightly; there was no way he was going to avoid this. Oh boy.

Ranboo was an enderman hybrid; that was clear to anyone, what with black corrupting the left side of his body, the way he could teleport without a pearl, his inhuman name, and how he reverted back to the language of the End when stressed. It also meant water hurt; not as much as it would to an enderman, but rain prickled, and straight water stung.

Ranboo sticks a shoe into the water, hissing in pain as the water soaked through his sock, but he continued on. Thank goodness he was wearing a suit jacket, he didn’t want exposed skin hitting the water.

The hole is a bit small for him by about eight inches, but he’s desperate to get out of the water, and has to compact his entire body to shuffle into the small tunnel. It’s very small, but he continues all the way down, before looking back. Big Q and Fundy were following, and Tubbo was up ahead.

The tunnel was dark, lit with only a few torches. It smelled slightly of mold, which implied it had been here a while. Confirmed his suspicions of being here from before the rainwater. But why a meeting room _here?_ Was it secret? It must be, if it was a month old and he didn’t know about it until now.

When the tunnel opened up to a larger room where he could actually stand without slouching half of his body, he does not expect to see multiple paintings of gored pigs.

That’s... nice.

“Welcome to the Butcher Army,” Quackity says from behind him, and the two behind him walk into the room, Tubbo standing at the front. Quackity’s arms are stretched like he’s showcasing the room, but there’s not much to show; the room itself looked like a hollow in the stone, large enough for a table in the center but no chairs, forcing them all to stand. Paintings of bloody and graphic imagery of pigs took up every square inch of wallspace. Ranboo forced himself to keep his eyes trained on Quackity; he hated the eye contact, but at least it was better than having the image of a decapitated pig burned into his eyeballs.

“Butcher Army?” he laughs nervously, glancing at Tubbo and Fundy, but they’re silent. Big Q clears his throat.

“We want to kill Technoblade,” he says, cutting straight to the point. The lack of dancing around the subject stung Ranboo similarly to the water in the crater and he couldn’t help a wince. It made sense; the bloody aprons, the axes hanging at their sides, the paintings of dead pigs on the walls. But the Technoblade that held records on Hypixel, who dedicated his life to the arts of war and farming? _Him?_

“W- why?” Ranboo asks. That’s the only piece left to the _why does Techno matter so much_ puzzle. He had heard from Phil that Techno was in retirement. Ranboo wasn’t here when Techno had unleashed withers upon L’manberg, but why would they want revenge? L’manberg was peaceful, and it wouldn’t go to war. Tubbo literally _exiled_ Tommy to prevent a war. Why would they start one now?

“Because he’s a threat,” Fundy says, as though it’s obvious. It’s not obvious, at least not to him. Maybe it would have been for someone who was here during the war, but Ranboo didn’t carry that trauma. He didn’t know yet what everyone had done wrong here, and why some people were bad and others weren’t; he was neutral, he was unbiased. He didn’t want to make enemies here, and he _certainly_ didn’t want a repeat of Hypixel. Driven out due to all the opponents he had made. He shivers at the memory.

“And you... want to kill him?” Ranboo questions.

Quackity sighs as though he’s an idiot. “Ranboo, we’re going to find Techno, we’re gonna bring him back to L’manberg, and then we’re gonna execute him for war crimes. Are you on our side or not?”

Ranboo can’t help from thinking of the war crimes board he set up in the plaza as a joke. Tubbo had laughed so hard when he saw it, and Ranboo joked the count would never exceed one. Now he’s realizing that board got taken down to make room for the guillotine, for all those empty seats of the audience. Techno was going to be slaughtered like a pig right in the heart of a place he destroyed. Perhaps that was the point.

“This was a mistake,” he hears Big Q mumble to Fundy and Tubbo before Ranboo announces, “Yes.”

“Y- yes?” Tubbo says excitedly. “You’re gonna help us?”

“I mean- I don’t, uh...” Ranboo scratches the back of his head. “I don’t want violence. I don’t want to kill Techno. We should at least give him a fair trial.”

He sees Quackity’s lip curl, but Ranboo pretends he doesn’t see it. He hurries on: “I mean, it’s only fair. We’re a country, we’re supposed to have a fair government. What kind of nation would we be if we execute prisoners that- well. We should give him a fair case.”

“Sure,” Tubbo says, nodding. He looks at Fundy and Quackity. “We can grant that.”

Ranboo smiles at the president, who smiles back. “Alright! Alright. Um. Then we leave then?”

“Yep!” Tubbo says, voice as sweet as honey, and when Ranboo turns, he doesn’t see the look Tubbo sends Quackity and Fundy. There would be no trial. The Butcher Army had a purpose, and they intended to carry it out.

_Fundy quackity and tubbo want to arrest techno (maybe execute? For sure trial)_ _wearing bloody aprons, named themselves the butcher army. Dont know where the blood came from; maybe pigs?_ _meeting room under the water in the crater. Be cautious_

Ranboo slides into a seat at the plaza, a deep sense of shame roiling in his gut. Quackity is shouting something he’s tuning out; the only thing he can focus on is Technoblade, the mighty piglin warrior who _tore this country to pieces,_ now in chains, escorted by Fundy. But Ranboo didn’t feel triumphant, he didn’t feel proud. Dragging away a retired man, despite his crimes, felt so very wrong. Yet here Techno was, stripped of all armor, all defenses, about to be killed. And for what? What were they trying to prove?

Ranboo didn’t get it. Maybe he never would. Even with a trial, this didn’t feel right. The way they had treated Phil, were treating Techno now...

“Technoblade is going to be executed today for the bombing of L’manberg and the murder of our president during the festival,” Quackity says, his voice carrying across the plaza. He’s standing next to a lever hooked up to the guillotine, and it’s clear that with one flick the blade connected to that wire will come crashing down. Ranboo’s eyes widen, and he stands up from his seat.

“Wait- wait, what about- what about the trial?” he calls, straightening to his full height. He pretends he doesn’t see Fundy cower, despite being several feet away.

“There will be no trial,” Quackity says, eyes narrowing at him, and Ranboo slinks back, his heart sinking. He doesn’t look at Techno, who is squinting at him with an unreadable face. He instead looks up at Phil’s house, searching for the man watching in the window. Phil looks away, and so does he.

Ranboo does not want to be here.

“Can I just point out,” Techno starts- under the chopping block and arguing for his life. “I just want to point out that I didn’t even bomb L’manberg. That was Wilbur. You’re trying to kill me for crimes I didn’t commit.”

“You unleashed withers!” Fundy shouts, as though it equates. “You ruined this country!”

“You started a government, _right in front of me,_ ” Techno fires back, and he doesn’t even look scared. If he does, he’s hiding it extremely well. “I had my intentions clear from the beginning. I’m an anarchist. I provided you with the gear to take down a corrupt government, and you immediately turned on me and replaced it with another. All power does is corrupt. It only makes you use people.” At that, Techno’s eyes slide to Ranboo, before looking back at Fundy, but no one notices except the two of them. Ranboo scratches the back of his neck nervously, trying not to think about what that implied.

“Pull the lever,” Tubbo whispers, and Quackity does, without a second thought.

_put phil under house arrest and took a compass from him that led to techno’s house in the snow. It’s north, cross the ocean. Fundy quackity tubbo and i took boats to his house and techno tried to get us to back off but we didnt so he started attacking us, then quackity took his horse (carl?) hostage and we brought him back in boats, didnt get a trial??_

Techno doesn’t die. Of course he doesn’t.

Right as the blade of the guillotine had come crashing down, Techno pulled a totem of undying from his inventory, one that the cabinet didn’t even know he had. He survived, just as Punz flew in with a trident and distracted them all long enough for Techno to escape.

Also, Quackity’s corpse was bleeding out on the snow.

Fundy had found him first; Quackity had disappeared somewhere, right in the middle of their search for Techno. Fundy could hear the best out of everyone, what with being a fox hybrid, and the sound of a man dying was clear only to him. They had found him in a tunnel leading to a dark blackstone room; it had been so dark in the hallway that Ranboo heard it before he saw him- the sound of shoes squeaking on something slippery, before Ranboo almost slipped in the blood coating the ground. There was so much of it, and neither of them knew what to do. The man was dead anyway, and it was all so incredibly gorey that Ranboo closed his eyes and didn’t even bother to open them after that, just staying long enough to drag him out with Fundy, eyes shut tight. Tubbo had stood outside, but as soon as he saw the state of the vice president, almost vomited and immediately left. Ranboo couldn’t blame him. He didn’t like to deal with the dead either.

The respawn process was intricate. Every single person had three lives only, three to treasure before they all either turned into ghosts, or passed on. Whenever you died, your corpse was simply that; a corpse, a body no longer living. It could take between minutes to days for you to return to your body depending on severity of injury, and even that was painful, or at least so he heard. Tubbo had described it to him once as returning to breathe after being submerged in water. And if he knew anything about water, he knew it was pain, so no thank you, he did not want to die.

They had brought Quackity’s body to the snow outside the camarvan; it was kind of obvious that Techno had done this. No one shed blood as much as he did, and right now there was a lot of it. Fundy didn’t want to spill blood on the newly reconstructed van, but after they laid him on the ground, they didn’t know what to do. When you respawned, you usually had your health back as normal, with some scars. Did he need medical treatment? Ranboo didn’t know, but he sat next to Fundy, trying not to look at the red seeping into the snow.

The snow. The other day, he had decorated L’manberg with Fundy, dragging snowmen everywhere and making the nation festive. Why did the mood have to change so quickly in mere days? From peace to bloodlust?

Ranboo remembered Tubbo’s words, and though he hadn’t been standing on that obsidian wall, he could hear it echoing in his mind.

 _“Teaming with Technoblade is an awful idea! War is not the best for this nation._ Nothing _involving any kind of conflict is the best for this nation. You guys are thinking emotionally, irrationally; you need to think logically! There’s more than just us that live here!”_

What were Ranboo’s ideals? He sits on the step of the camarvan, trying to think, but he can’t come up with anything, so he stands up and leaves Fundy alone as he walks back to the plaza. Ranboo stares up at the guillotine, the blade clean of any blood.

 _This isn’t L’manberg_ , he thinks. This was what Techno was talking about. Tyranny. Oppression. Brutality. But he wasn’t supposed to sympathize with Techno... right?

A voice jolts him out of his thoughts, the softness of it causing him to look down from the guillotine and search the boardwalk with his eyes until he finds the floating figure of Ghostbur, clutching the lead to a blue sheep. Ghostbur is singing as he walks down a staircase, the sheep walking along with him, and Ranboo’s heart aches as he recognizes the melody.

“ _I heard there was a secret place, where men could go and emancipate-_ oh, hello Ranboo!” the ghost says cheerfully, noticing him. Ranboo lifts up his hand in a weak wave, and Ghostbur hurries up, excited to see him.

“I was just talking to Phil, I- hello Phil!” Ghostbur waves at Phil, and Ranboo looks up at the window. The man was staring down at them but waved back at Ghostbur. Ghostbur turns back to Ranboo, a smile on his face. “I wanted to show him Friend! Do you want to see Friend?”

“Is that him?” Ranboo asks, looking down at the sheep, and Friend ambles up to him and nuzzles his hand. He smiles for what feels like the first time in hours, and he leans down to scritch the sheep’s coat, before looking back up at Ghostbur, who continues talking. “I was just talking to him about this! I heard Tubbo brought Techno here today to kill him, and I was a bit confused because Techno was a friend, but when I said so Tubbo only laughed and shook his head. I didn’t get it because I’ve only had nice interactions with him. And then apparently Techno escaped, but they put Phil on house arrest.” Ranboo winces at that and looks up at the man in the window, who only raises an eyebrow at him. He stands up, scratching the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I, uh- I didn’t.... I don’t know why that happened. I’m really sorry, Phil. I thought this was all just going to be peaceful.”

“Yeah, do anything against a government these days and they only think it’s treason,” he scoffs. The bitterness in his tone is enough to wound Ranboo from here.

“I don’t think it was a very good idea,” Ghostbur chimes in. “Phil is a friend, don’t you think? He should be allowed to walk around.” Ranboo nods and Ghostbur continues quickly. “I mean, I was- I was Wilbur, and I remember starting this country. And I remember that I started it to escape from tyranny, that’s what I wrote the song about!” As if he’s taking a brief interlude, he hums the next lyrics- _the brutality and tyranny of their rulers_ , and continues speaking, voice much quieter. “But it hasn’t felt like that lately. Don’t you think, Ranboo?”

Ranboo is jolted out of his thoughts and looks down at Ghostbur, who is staring up at him. “I- I agree,” he admits. “I don’t know what to think. Tubbo didn’t want conflict, but then he did this...” _it’s just a cycle of revenge for the abuse they receive,_ he thinks, and sits down in a chair, looking down at the ground. “I know everyone’s got good intentions, it’s just... people are flawed. And that just carries out into their actions. Maybe L’manberg was only ever an ideal.” _Maybe it shouldn’t even exist,_ he leaves unspoken, but it hangs heavy in the air.

Ghostbur hums at that, then looks back up at Phil. “Do you want to come see Techno with me?”

Phil chuckles. “No, I can’t. You go.”

Ranboo is slightly alarmed, but the death look Phil is shooting him keeps him silent. Ghostbur turns to Ranboo excitedly, Friend turning to him as well. “Well, if Phil won’t, will you? I want to show Technoblade Friend!”

“I... I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I don’t think he would be happy to see me.”

“Please?” Ghostbur asks, as though that’ll convince him. It’s not enough.

“Maybe some other time,” and he stands up and retires to his home early, trying not to think about it.

_techno executed but survived (totem), punz planted tnt everywhere as a distraction but fundy and i got rid of it (in top barrel to the right). Techno escaped with carl and killed quackity in blackstone room (last life) waiting for him to respawn, ghostbur wants to visit techno with phil but phil cant so ghostbur wants me to come with. Not sure if im on the good side anymore?_

Of course he thinks about it, and eventually, he can no longer turn Ghostbur down when he asks. That’s how he finds himself lost in the snow with Ghostbur, bundled up in a heavy cloak, squinting through the flakes as they fell and holding up an umbrella for the two of them. Snow was only condensed water, and it stung Ranboo and melted Ghostbur. Perhaps this wasn’t the best of the plans, but they still followed through.

“Oh! Up ahead!” Ghostbur shouts triumphantly, and Ranboo squints. He doesn’t see anything through the smattering of white falling from the sky. “Where?” he asks, and Ghostbur points at a thin trail of smoke, previously invisible. Their hour-long trek was finally coming to a close, and Ranboo finds himself speeding up to get closer to the cabin. The snow had started melting through the soles of his shoes thirty minutes ago, and every step sent a prickle of pain into his feet. He was not having a great time, but his friends were important to him, and he didn’t want Ghostbur melting. Not on his watch, at least.

“Do you think Techno will be fine with seeing me?” he asks for what feels like the millionth time. Ranboo got an anxiety spike halfway through the trip, but he didn’t want to leave Ghostbur and Friend out here alone.

“Yes! You’re both friends, why wouldn’t he like you?”

“There’s... sure,” Ranboo murmurs, the arm holding up the umbrella drooping slightly. “I’m just worried.”

“I’m sorry,” Ghostbur says, turning to him with a frown, sounding very genuine. “Would you like some blue?”

Ranboo chuckles, accepting the small crystals as they were pressed into his other palm. “Sure,” he says. “Thank you.” He squeezes his hand tight before slipping the crystals into his pocket; he didn’t want to lose them.

Ghostbur gives him the most dazzling of smiles, and as they crest the hill, the house comes into view. It’s quite small, just a cottage, built of stone brick and spruce logs. A shock of guilt sends him shivering, and he thinks back to the events from earlier that day; he and the rest of the cabinet raiding Phil’s house, stealing the compass, walking here, to this same house...

A door on the bottom floor swings open, the light from inside spilling onto the snow. Ranboo raises a hand to shield against the sudden brightness, and a blond boy runs out at them, a huge grin on his face.

“Tommy?” Ranboo asks, slightly shocked, just as Tommy shouts, “WILBUR! RANBOO!”

 _“Tommy?”_ he asks again, rather incredulous, just as the other boy reaches them. After Ranboo had visited Logstedshire one day to write back, he had seen the explosions, the lack of tent, and the giant pillar towering into the air, and assumed the worst. He was so glad he was wrong.

Ghostbur laughs and ruffles Tommy’s hair, who starts shouting insults at him, and Tommy looks down at Friend before petting him.

“Tommy, I- you’re okay!” Ranboo says, extremely relieved. He was glad his friend wasn’t dead. He hadn’t even known him that long, but he still cared.

“Why wouldn’t I be, dickhead?” Tommy asks, snorting slightly and looking up at him. “You should come inside, wouldn’t want you dying out here.” He wrinkles his nose as though death were only a mild inconvenience.

“No, I think that’s far enough,” a voice calls from behind Tommy, but he isn’t scared, just rolls his eyes and groans.

“Don’t you know what hypothermia does to people?” Tommy accuses, turning to stare at Technoblade, who is standing on his porch. Techno ignores him, just staring at Ranboo. Ranboo gulps and straightens.

“Why is he here?” Techno asks Ghostbur, who waves.

“Oh, he was a travel buddy!”

“I didn’t want him getting lost,” Ranboo says apologetically, his arm holding the umbrella wavering.

“Ghostbur, he tried _killing_ me,” Techno says, unimpressed.

“No, that- I didn’t want that to happen,” Ranboo butts in.

“Then how did you want it to happen?” he says, voice calm despite the circumstances, walking down from the porch and staring straight at Ranboo. Despite being a few inches taller, he shrank back from Techno’s gaze, and looked down at the ground.

“I thought- I just thought it would be more peaceful than that. I don’t even know if we should have gone to arrest you anyway.”

“Give me one of my things back and I might consider not killing you.”

Ranboo straightens slightly, looking up; he can work with that. He had Techno’s full armor set, so if he gave it over right now, maybe he wouldn’t be murdered!

 _What if L’manberg finds out?_ _  
_

Ranboo blinks, then simply asks, “Do you have an Ender chest?”

_Went to visit technos house with ghostbur, took forever, very cold. Tommy was staying with techno (no longer at logstedshire??) who wanted to murder me (i think) gave his armor back, no one likes him but hes cool so stay on his good side. Tommy doesnt want me to come back (safety ???) but you should because you are friends_

“We’re doing an inventory check,” Tubbo announces to the rest of the cabinet, that day in the camarvan. It had been two weeks since he had visited Techno and Tommy, and today the president had called a meeting. “I’ve got all of Techno’s weapons, but I don’t know who picked up his armor and it’s missing.” He looks at each of them in turn, and Ranboo tries not to let his sudden anxiety show on his face.

“Well, I didn’t pick it up, and Quackity was on the horse,” Fundy points out. “Ranboo? Did you?”  
Ranboo tries to come up with a convincing lie in time, but he can’t, so he tells the truth. “I did, yeah. It’s in my Ender chest.”

“Oh! I picked up like seven of those from Dream the other day, hold on,” Tubbo says, and pulls up his inventory, before the chests materialize in his hand and he sets one on the ground. “Pull it out for me, would you?”

Ranboo’s heart sinks, and he can feel the sweat start to build on his neck, but he opens the chest anyway and sorts through it. He had tools, blocks of rare gemstones, netherite ingots, and... not a single piece of Technoblade’s armor.

“It’s- not in here,” he says, feigning confusion. “I- what?”

“What do you mean, it’s not in the chest? It’s not like anyone can take it out,” Quackity points out, immediately getting suspicious.

“I don’t remember...” he mutters, and Quackity groans at that, adjusting his beanie. Ranboo may have an awful memory, but the others didn’t know what memories he did or did not possess. He didn’t like to lie about it, but sometimes it was necessary.

“Can you find out?” Tubbo prods, and picks the chest back up, stashing it in his inventory.

“Maybe I wrote it down,” Ranboo says, and pulls out his notebook. He pretends to scour the pages of the journal, but there’s nothing. “There’s... nothing here.”

“Let me see,” Fundy says, and before Ranboo can protest, the book is already snatched out of his grip. Fundy turns the pages, reading it, before his eyes widen.

“You...” he trails off, continuing to read, before Ranboo takes it back. “You talked to Technoblade...?”

Ranboo blanches, and Quackity and Tubbo immediately look at him. Everyone has a mix of emotions on their faces, ranging from fury to betrayal to hurt, and all of the eyes on him is sending some Enderman part in his brain into panic mode. _Not the time._

Ranboo does not want to be here, he decides.

“Ghostbur- Ghostbur needed someone to go with him, and-”

“You did WHAT?” Quackity shouts, his reaction delayed, but it makes Ranboo flinch, and he looks away.

“Is that where the armor went?” Tubbo asks, wounded.

“He was going to kill me if I didn’t give it to him!” Ranboo explains quickly, hands splayed in a show of peace. “I didn’t want to, I swear!”

“What the HELL are we going to do with you?” Quackity says, voice quiet but furious, and he storms up to Ranboo, staring into his eyes. Ranboo can’t look away, and the eye contact is making his brain switch from panic to a frenzy. “You said you wouldn’t betray us! And what do you do, the first chance you get? Fraternize with the enemy? Are you kidding me?”

Ranboo flinches again at that, and he rips his gaze away from Quackity, who only snarls and spins to look at Tubbo, whose pained stare turned into a glare.

“Ranboo, that’s-” Tubbo’s voice breaks and he restarts, clearing his throat. “I don’t want to do this. But you know the punishment for treason.”

“Wait, you-” Ranboo chuckles, betraying his anxiety. “You’re- you don’t have to-”

“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” Tubbo says, and his hand drifts to the sword at his side. Ranboo’s eyes widen, and he acts without thinking for the first time in his life, the basic instincts running through his blood sending him outside of the camarvan with the teleport of an Enderman.

Oh, no.

Yelling immediately sounds from within the van, and Ranboo spins around and runs. He can’t go to his house and pack a bag, he can’t run to Dream’s territory; _the Badlands?_ he thinks, but he can’t remember where that is. Ranboo trusts his feet to take him to where he needs to go, and he sprints down the wooden road, running past the ice cream and flower shops, the wreckage of Tubbo’s first house, and the holy land, until he finds himself right in front of the Nether portal.

 _I’ve got nothing left to lose,_ he thinks, and he steps right through.

The blackstone cage around the portal is missing a few more bricks than it did yesterday, but Ranboo pays that no mind, spinning to look at all the paths leading from it- there’s the two that go to Logstedshire, the one that goes to Sam’s house, then the two for the rest of the Nether.

He didn’t need the Nether right now. He needed shelter. Sam was a friend of Tubbo, so he probably couldn’t trust him now, and even though Tommy wasn’t even staying at Logstedshire anymore, Ranboo was sure he could... make it work.

Ranboo darts down the pathway with nothing but the clothes on his back, a stack of baked potatoes in his inventory, some netherite tools, and a book that meant everything.

_left lmanberg, they accused you of treason and tried to kill you. not sure if its safe anywhere. where do i go?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i guess i did continue it. whoopsies :)

Ranboo woke up to a sunny day, cumulus clouds crossing the sky like whorls of ice, the sun shining from behind the clouds. He grumbles, then puts a hand to his face, an ache starting from beneath his temples. Moping in a bed wouldn’t do anything to help his headache, so he sits up and elects to pour himself a glass of water.

Oh.

Wait.

Ranboo stands up quickly, looking down at where he had slept; one of the lawn chairs sitting dejectedly at the beach, underneath a big beach umbrella. He was at Logstedshire, and as he took in his surroundings, he groaned. A glass of water was at the bottom of his priorities now.

Everything was blown up, even Tommy’s tent. The only things that remained were giant posters flapping from walls in the breeze, at least two different houses built out of oak wood with no roofs, and a big bedrock sign that spelled out ‘DRISTA.’

 _Why wasn’t he at L’manberg?_ was the only thing on Ranboo’s mind, his traitorous memory failing him once again, and he pulls out his journal, flipping to the most recent passage. Inhaling a shaky breath, he reads it over and over again, the line _wanted to execute you_ imprinted in his brain. His friends...?

The more he thought about it, the more vague pictures came back to him; Quackity standing in his face, Tubbo with a hand on his sword, running through the Nether...

Ranboo forces his mind off the subject and takes a shaky step forward, and when he doesn’t immediately trip and die he continues, walking toward the first oak house he saw. It contained nothing except for chairs and an empty basement, and then he glanced over at the other oak house. That one looked like it had chests, and he finds his pace quickening to a jog as he makes his way over.

Opening one of the chests inside the room, he finds wood items, and in another ores, and in yet another, some wheat and dried jerky. Okay, he could work with this!

Then, the gravity of the situation hits him, and he sits down. He was so intent on the need to survive he didn’t think about the implications of it all. He was on the run, from his friends. His _friends._ Who he trusted. And he escaped to a blown up and abandoned exile site.

Was he going to stay here forever?

Ranboo pulls out his journal and reads over all the past entries. _Drained ocean monument with Tubbo........ Went to Nether with Fundy and Tommy........... Mining competition with Fundy......... talked to Phil......_

His heart ached. He wouldn’t be able to experience any of this ever again, would he? He went out on a journey of self-banishment to avoid death, and why? Because his friends thought he was a traitor?

 _This is all just a huge misunderstanding,_ Ranboo thinks, and not just of his current situation. A misunderstanding between Tommy and Tubbo caused Tommy to be exiled, a misunderstanding between Dream and Wilbur caused a war. Human _pride_ made everyone think they were in the right, that they were all good people, but only to them.

Ranboo leans back against the oak wall of the chest room with a sigh, setting down the journal. It’s not like he could do anything about that. What, would he give everyone a school lesson about _ethics?_ What a joke.

He didn’t know what to do. Return to L’manberg, try and explain? They were already trying to kill him earlier. Returning after running made him even more guilty.

He didn’t want to try Technoblade’s house, either. Ranboo was pretty sure he grew on Techno the night he visited, but he didn’t want to chance it. He didn’t have any more of Techno’s gear to provide, and the idea of Ranboo losing his first life to Technoblade’s sword, was, well. Not ideal.

The Badlands were an option, but Ranboo wasn’t exactly sure of where their territory was, and he didn’t trust a single one of them to not sell him out to L’manberg anyway, what with how their only purpose was to fuel conflict and all.

Maybe he should stay in Logsted. Hopefully not forever, just...

Ranboo closes his eyes and drags his knees forward, resting his head on them. His eyes flick to the journal, then back to the wall. What the hell was he supposed to do?

At that thought, he stands up. Sitting and moping wouldn’t help him in his current situation. He glances back at the chest room, then to the right, where the exploded ruins of Logsted sat. He approaches it, looking down at the crater, and shivers, thinking of L’manberg.

_L’manberg was only ever an ideal..._

Some charred remains of items sit in the crater, and he hops down to look at them. Twisted bars of iron ingots, diamonds buried in dirt.... Ender pearls.

Ranboo picks those up without thinking and stashes them in his inventory, then looks up, his gaze traveling up the entire length of the dirt pillar. Everyone in L’manberg thought Tommy was dead because of that, but he knew better. He just wished he could have remembered to tell people. Damn his memory.

“Ranboo!” he hears, and spins around, anxiety immediately spiking. He looks around frantically, but his feet were rooted in place. Who said that? Was it the cabinet? Did they find him? Should he run?

When he sees who it is, his anxiety doesn’t lower. Dream steps into view, standing on top of the wall, looking down at him. Ranboo straightens; the only thing he’s holding is his book, and he sends it into his inventory. They stare at each other, but because of Dream’s mask, Ranboo can hold eye contact. Maybe that was one of the only pros of Dream’s whole cryptid thing.

“What are you doing here?” Dream asks coolly, and Ranboo tries to think of a response that won’t immediately reveal his entire situation. _Dream probably knows anyway,_ he thinks bitterly.

“I’m looking for Tommy,” he says instead, taking on a defiant tone.

“Really?” Dream says, head tilting slightly. Ranboo tries not to shiver at that. Dream was calculated and cruel, making you think he was on your side first and bombing your country the next.

Ranboo tries not to think about it.

“Tommy’s dead,” Dream says, hands in his pockets, and Ranboo frowns, before his gaze turns into a glare.

“No, he isn’t.”

A smile quirks up at Dream’s lips, the mask only covering half his face today. Was that funny to him? A deep seated anger started collecting in his gut, but he held it down. Dream was more powerful than him by a long shot. Forget about Tubbo and the rest of the cabinet; what could _Dream_ do to him? The worst thing Tubbo could do was execute him. He didn’t want to know what Dream was capable of.

“No, he’s not,” Dream says, before hopping down from the wall and landing in the crater. He approaches Ranboo, who stiffens slightly, but doesn’t let his posture slouch. He’s taller than the other man, and that’s really the only thing he can hold over him at the minute. “Do you know where he is?”

Ranboo’s mind races. Dream doesn’t know where Tommy is, but Ranboo does. Crap.

Dream takes another step closer, and Ranboo takes a step back. “You know where he is, don’t you?” he says, voice calm and controlled. Ranboo is starting to panic at this; _tell the truth and risk Tommy’s safety or die,_ because those really did seem to be the only options!

“No, I don’t,” Ranboo says, forcing his voice to steady, but it sounds higher than he would like. An obvious lie, and both of them knew it.

But Dream doesn’t force him to continue, just steps back and looks up out the crater. He’s looking at the hill where Tommy’s tent once sat, obviously deep in thought. Could Ranboo run without Dream noticing? He takes a step to the side, but Dream speaks again, causing him to freeze in place.

“I wish you would tell me, Ranboo. But that’s okay.” The man turns to him and Ranboo contains a wince, a huge smile on Dream’s face. He didn’t trust that, not one bit, but he didn’t think he was meant to. “I’m just disappointed. You don’t have anyone left, and you’re on the run. Surely you want to talk to Tommy and I?”

Ranboo’s gaze drifts to the side. Dream was right. He was alone.

The more time he takes to think, the bigger Dream’s smile gets, and Ranboo looks back up at him. “I’m just worried about Tommy’s safety more than anything.”

“Why wouldn’t he be safe with me?” Dream purrs.

Ranboo shivers. He doesn’t know who blew up Logstedshire and forced Tommy to go on the run, but he could figure it out easily enough. Who was the one that stayed with Tommy? Dream. He even knew Dream exploded Tommy’s armor and tools. What would stop him from exploding the rest of Logsted while he was at it?

 _What would_ cause _him to explode Logsted?_

Ranboo looks to the side and sees a floor of cobblestone, with remains of items smeared into the ground.

_That would explain it._

“No,” Ranboo says loudly. The smile drops off Dream’s face, a frown taking its place instead, and even though Ranboo is scared, he stands taller and looks down at Dream. “Tommy will never be safe with you.”

With that, Ranboo steps out of the crater into the greater of Logstedshire.

A quiet voice speaks from behind him, and he stops, straining his ears to hear.

_"We’ll see.”_

_Staying in logsted for the time being. Don’t trust dream. He’s up to something.._


	3. Chapter 3

The next few days in Logstedshire pass without incident. It’s not home to Ranboo, but maybe he never had one of those anyways, he thinks bitterly.

As he pokes the embers of a dying campfire, sitting on the beach and watching the sun dip into the water, he reflects.

It occurs to him that he’s not really sure what home feels like, but if it was anything like what Tommy looked like at Techno’s cabin compared to Logsted, he could guess. Home was a place you always found yourself returning to, with the people that mattered. It was a place of safety and warmth.

L’manberg never really felt like that to him. Tensions between him and Quackity had heightened in the past few weeks, and although he hung out with Tubbo and Fundy frequently, they never made him feel safe. He didn’t feel like he belonged. Even back in Hypixel, where he rose across the leaderboards and actually made a name for himself, there wasn’t any place like that.

His eyes drift from the fire to the light bouncing along the sand and wonders what having a home was like, and who he would have it with.

 _I miss my friends,_ Ranboo thinks, and pulls his legs to the side, lying down. His crown pushes against his head uncomfortably and he takes it off, black and white hair mixing with the sand. Ranboo doesn’t care.

He just watches the sun as it disappears from the horizon, and then he falls asleep.

_It’s quiet in logsted. Nothing happens but at least its quiet._

It’s utterly dreary in Logstedshire. Ranboo can understand why Tommy hated it; the land itself wasn’t bad, per se, it was just so empty that the silence was suffocating. Ranboo sometimes just shouted lyrics to Lemon Demon songs he listened to, just to drown it all out.

Being alone was awful.

Ranboo knew he could probably find Techno’s house, but he was missing his umbrella, and didn’t even have a coat. The pinches from potential snowfall combined with hypothermia wasn’t something he wanted to risk, and so he stayed in Logsted.

He’s chopping a tree down one day when he stops, setting his axe against the tree and wiping sweat off his brow. His suit jacket was tied around his waist, due to all the movement he was performing, and he felt sweaty and hot and just all around _bad._

 _I should get water,_ he thinks with a sigh. Despite water being an Endermen weakness, Ranboo was still half... something that dehydrated, and therefore had to consume water lest he die. Water didn’t hurt the inside of his mouth, but if he got it on his face it stung.

Ranboo really drew the short end of the stick there.

He stumbles down to the pond by the ruined portal and pulls out a bottle, filling it with water and taking a swig. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thinks _I should really clean this, I could get dysentery,_ before pushing aside the thought. He could honestly care less by now. Maybe he should root around in the chest room and look for a water purifier, but Tommy didn’t seem like the type to know to purify water before drinking it.

Then again, Ranboo had underestimated him before, and he thinks back to the trial.

Ranboo tips the bottle all the way up and drains it, before refilling it and standing back up, looking back at Logsted.

Wow. This _really_ sucked. If only he wasn’t under threat of death wherever there was civilization, Ranboo thinks, annoyed.

He walks back to the beach he was sleeping at and pulls his journal off the table, turning it over in his hand. He stares at the cover, the silver lettering reading _Ranboo’s Memory Book._ It was the only thing he had left; or at least, the only thing that mattered, from all his old belongings.

He flips through the pages, not even reading the lines. He could probably read it off by heart if not for the fact that he was so forgetful. Dammit.

Ranboo sets the book back down and sits down heavily in a beach chair, looking out across the water. He really didn’t have anyone now, did he?

He sits there quietly for the rest of the night, before finally dozing off into an uneasy sleep.

_Not sure if this place is good for me anymore. I shouldnt leave though, dont want to risk anything_

Ranboo is poking around the nearby village one day for supplies when he finds himself missing L’manberg.

He stands up, glancing at the swamp before turning and heading back to Logsted, arms full of emeralds, the villagers done trading for the day. The houses were built from spruce, like his old house, and he misses it.

Ranboo wishes he was back with his cats, scritching their bellies while reading a book by the fire. He wonders if his to-do list was still taped to the doorway, the bulletpoint _read the national papers in Ghostbur’s library_ still left without a strikethrough. He wishes for his old fountain pen he wrote with and its delicate black strokes, but all he had now was a pencil he had picked up from the village.

Most of all, he missed what it had felt like to walk those boardwalks without a care. He wanted to go back to that, swindling friends with Fundy and chatting with Phil and exploring with Tubbo.

He wondered what L’manberg had felt like when it was in its prime. Right after the war, the youthful nation with its big, black walls that promised safety and shelter within its borders. The newness of it all shining in every single tree and building.

Now, the nation was bitter, had experienced war after war, and even though it promised growth, it had succumbed to its own cycle of self destruction.

He wonders how Tubbo is doing. The president, holding the weight of an entire nation on his shoulders, while his own cabinet members don’t listen to him and undermine him with every chance they get.

Ranboo wishes he could have helped more. He just wanted to go back, give the cabinet a stern talking to, and actually make it the special place the anthem sung about again.

He pushes the thought of _maybe that special place is gone forever, and Wilbur knew that, when he was still alive_ away. He didn’t want to think about that.

Ranboo brushes through the tall grass, walking back to the chest room. He dumps the pile of emeralds he traded for into the ore chest, before looking up at the sky. The sun was setting, but it wouldn’t be night for at least an hour.

He checks the food chest, pulling out strips of beef jerky, then walks over to the shoreline of the river and checks the carrots he’s growing, pulling a few out and washing them with his water bottle before sitting down next to the tilled land and eating his food. He stares down into the clear water, fish swimming clearly as he chews. He swallows uncomfortably, taking a swig of water, then continues to eat.

It doesn’t dawn on Ranboo that this sucks. He’s used to that thought at this point. This is just the new normal.

He finishes his depressing meal and makes his way over to the beach, tugging his suit jacket on. Ranboo stands there, staring up at the sky as the stars slowly appear in place of clouds, then sits down in his usual chair.

He falls asleep without incident.

_I miss everyone :(_

It’s not so much a sudden noise as it is an ambience, but his eyes shoot open anyway when he hears the Nether portal suddenly whir, purple clouds swirling in the glass of the portal.  
Someone was coming through.

This occurs to him just as he sees a human appear and step out into the night air, and he scrambles out of the chair, jumping behind the table. He breathes in and out quickly, though silent; _they finally found me, haven’t they?_ he thinks, heart sinking, before peeking up past the table.

Tubbo was standing on the shoveled path, staring up at the dirt pillar, and Ranboo realizes.

Tubbo wasn’t here for him.

That doesn’t make him feel any better.

Ranboo’s breaths even, and he sneaks off the beach to a place behind a tree, closer to Tubbo but still hiding so that he couldn’t see him. Ranboo’s curiosity had peaked; did Tubbo know that Tommy was still alive?

When he notices the tears rolling down Tubbo’s cheeks, his breath catches in his throat. No, then. Tommy was still dead to the world.

“Tommy, I know-” Tubbo says, before his voice cracks and he clears his throat. He restarts. “Tommy, I’m really sorry. I wish we could have seen eye to eye on this. I wish you could have realized that there are things more important than- than sentimentality or power. We had a nation. We could have-” Tubbo chokes out a sob, falling to his knees and holding himself. Ranboo feels like the scum of the earth. He was watching something he wasn’t meant to see, and it felt deeply personal. Maybe he shouldn’t be here.

“I wish I could have been a better me, for you,” Tubbo says, sobbing. The boy president is bawling his eyes out, right in the middle of a mental breakdown, and only Ranboo and the trees were there to witness it.

“I- I miss you, big man. I miss you.”

Tubbo stays there for a while, and Ranboo is torn between hugging his friend and booking it the hell out of there. He ends up staying in place, rooted to the spot. He hardly breathes as he watches his former friend stare at the ground.

Minutes pass before Tubbo stands up again and wipes his face with a sleeve. He casts one glance back up at the pillar before stepping back into the portal, and then he’s gone.

Ranboo stands there quietly, then makes his way over to where Tubbo had been sitting. When he shifts, light glints off of something in the dirt, and he leans down to brush away at soil before picking up the object.

It’s a shattered compass.

When Ranboo opens it, he sees the engraved words _Your Tommy_ imprinted on the metal, a small picture of Tommy from the revolution pasted on it, with a needle that didn’t even move on the bottom. This was the one that had gotten blown up by the charged creeper, he remembers; Tubbo’s distress that day had been palpable, and when he had left the mood had soured considerably. He might not remember much in his life, but when he experienced something with strong emotion, he could recall it easier. Ranboo knew from experience though. Strong emotions usually equated to pain, and it’s why he tried not to remember them.

Ranboo wonders why Tubbo didn’t keep it. Maybe he just wanted to move on.

It was easy for Ranboo to move on from the past, considering how he couldn’t remember it. Maybe that was the reason he didn’t understand vengeance.

Maybe he just wouldn’t be able to understand anything at all that happened here, and Ranboo sits down on the dirt path, still staring at the compass as though it held all the answers to the world he couldn’t find.

As the light from the torches shimmered on the cracked glass, he thought, rather numbly, _Maybe I’ll never find them at all._

_I cant stay here anymore_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, writing: this is a coastline by hollow coves moment


	4. Chapter 4

The day after Ranboo’s revelation, he wakes up with something new in his chest, something that he doesn’t recognize as hope until much, much later. The entire morning, he’s working harder than he has been in the past week. He digs through the chests in the storage room, searching for blaze rods and cobblestone and carrots and sets up a brewing stand on the table on the beach, his journal sitting right next to it, and sits there for a whole day, crafting golden carrots and fermented spider eyes and brewing potions of invisibility.

Ranboo is going back to L’manberg.

Was it a good idea? No. But he wasn’t known for making good decisions.

Ranboo didn’t care. He had realized the previous night that just sitting and pondering on a beach for days on end would not help him at all. His best bet was probably just trying to talk to Tubbo and the rest of the cabinet and _convincing_ them that he still cared for them and their cause; after all, Ranboo’s allegiance was never with a government, but with the people who helped him. He didn’t have to pretend to care for his friends.

As Ranboo sets down his final materials, he looks back up at the sky, the sun drooping below the horizon and the sky slowly turning from blue to pink to purple to black. He thinks back on the plan; he was going to go to Ghostbur’s library in the sewers, take all of the national documents, and then try to figure out just exactly what the hell L’manberg was about and what it stood for, because frankly, Ranboo had no _goddamn_ idea. Fighting with words one moment, threatening to go to war with a green man the next.

He decided not to question it until he read every single paper and figured it out himself.

Ranboo pulls up his inventory, stocking it with three invisibility potions, two golden apples, his netherite tools, a water bucket, and food. Armor would be meaningless, because even though clothes disappeared with invisibility, armor didn’t, and Ranboo didn’t want to alert anyone in L’manberg to his presence. He shivers at the thought of what would happen to him if someone were to find him.

Was this a horrible, awful, terrible idea? Yes. Was Ranboo still going to do it? Also yes.  
The sun leaves the sky and Ranboo leaves Logstedshire behind.

_I am going back to lmanberg for lmanberg books. hope i dont die :/_

The Nether is hot and dry when Ranboo steps through it, and he sets his feet on the hard netherrack. Netherrack was _like_ stone, but it made a spongy noise when you stepped on it; Ranboo didn’t really want to think about the implications of that, so he didn’t. What would it even be, mold?

He snorts at the thought and peers over the edge of the netherrack platform, lava bubbling far below. _Tommy should have invested in fences_ , he thinks, then grimly adds, _maybe no fences was the point._

He pulls an invisibility potion out of his inventory and drinks it, silvery liquid shimmering in the bottle, before it’s completely emptied and he stores the glass bottle in a different slot. Ranboo didn’t want to take any chances; even though practically no one was in the Nether, it was just to be safe.

The walk down the cobblestone road to the main portal is quick. His breathing becomes more uneven as he steps past the blackstone opening and into the swirling purple of the portal, and he can feel his heartbeat start thundering in the back of his throat as he enters the Overworld once more.

He steps through the portal, and straight ahead is the community house.

Ranboo doesn’t dwell on it for too long, just hurries down the steps and jogs down the wooden road, through the house, and onto the prime path. He doesn’t want to stay for longer than he has to; he wasn’t Tommy, he thinks grimly, careless with his life and who he crossed. Ranboo played it safe, sometimes too safe, being neutral whenever possible and hardly ever taking sides.

He’s being overly cautious, even making sure his steps are silent, and he glances around warily, before his breaths start to even. _No one is... here,_ he realizes. _Easier for me, I guess._

Ranboo continues on his way, passing the ice cream shop, glancing in for a brief moment, then walking past, underneath the bridge and past Punz’s estate, L’Targay and the Power Tower. He stops briefly in front of Tommy’s house; just before he had been exiled, someone replaced every block with granite to piss Tommy off, and now it had fallen into disrepair. _Wish I could have gotten around to fixing it,_ Ranboo thinks. Maybe it would have been a welcome home present for Tommy, if he was ever coming back.

Ranboo should talk to Tubbo about that, too.

He brushes past the house, eyes set on the growing buildings in the distance, beyond the hole dug into the hill. Ranboo’s pace quickens involuntarily, and a smile grows wide on his face, before he remembers that if anyone sees him, he could die.

Talk about a mood ruiner.

He forces his pace to slow, and he trots down the steps of the path. His heart is thundering again, and he stops, taking it all in. There was a recent snowfall, and everything is caked in white, but when he glances at the camarvan, the snow is still stained a pale red. It’s been weeks at this point, but he shivers at the thought of seeing Quackity’s broken body laying there again.

Ranboo forces his eyes to move off the spot of snow and look at the rest of the buildings. The plank boardwalks and houses still look the same, and he continues down the path.

L’manberg is.... desolate, he realizes with horror. No one was here. It was _empty._

Ranboo finds himself drinking another invisibility potion anyway.

He enters the main square, passing the stands that Ghostbur had set up and tugs on a balloon wistfully. He should get one of these sometime; maybe it would brighten up the beach, he thinks with a small smile.

Ranboo glances up past the balloon stand to the podium and the five chairs that stood on a platform and his gaze hardens. He was one of the few citizens left in L’manberg, one of the few that received every speech and decree that was made by the cabinet.

He turns and walks up a staircase, staring straight at the doors that faced him, before looking up and seeing the giant R on the roof. His house hadn’t changed one bit, but the lights were turned off. A shame he wasn’t around to replace them.

He wasn’t here for his house, anyway.

Ranboo turns away, his heart aching, and walks back down the staircase, instead jogging along a small path and up a taller staircase, through a door and out another, before he’s standing in the doorway of a crane.

Everyone knew that Ghostbur lived in a sewer, but no one was sure how to get in except those who lived in L’manberg itself. The reason Ranboo never visited was because the only way into the small space was by going through water, and that explained itself.

He knew this was coming, but he was still apprehensive. It wouldn’t take as long as going into the Butcher Army meeting room took, at least... hopefully. But at the same time, he _knew_ that the worse his health was, the more negatively affected he would be, and his nutrition at the moment had been piss poor at best.

Ranboo grimaces, steels his nerves, and jumps in feet first. The pain is like a numbing shock, but as soon as knows it he’s climbing onto the freezing stone and ripping off his suit jacket. He shakes off the droplets that cling to his skin, hissing and squeezing his eyes shut.

He laid there on the sewer ground for a few minutes, trying to outlive the burning of his skin. He wasn’t sure if water could kill him, and he didn’t want to find out.

When the pain finally recedes to a dull ache, Ranboo stands up shakily and puts a hand against the wall, picking up his jacket and tying it around his waist before walking slowly to the door. He presses the button, and it flung open. No one was home, it seemed, and Ranboo wondered distantly where Ghostbur was.

He steps inside the small room and looks around. Even though it was in a sewer, it was quite cozy, and barrels lined the walls with lanterns hanging from the ceiling. _This is quaint,_ he thinks with a smile, but the smile drops off his face when he remembers what he was here for.

Right. The books.

If Ranboo recalled correctly, Ghostbur’s library was in the other room, and he continues past the brewing stands and barrels to the next iron door. He presses another button, and this one swings open too.

There’s a cozy, navy blue chair sitting by a fireplace, with tall bookcases lining the walls and shelves upon shelves of books crammed into the spaces. He picked a book off the shelf and choked slightly upon the smell of raw sewage, putting it back where it stood

Ranboo looks down at a barrel and frowns. A tiny note sits on top, and he bends down to pick it up. His frown grows as he reads it.

 _Dear Ghostbur,_ _  
__We are sorry to say that you are being evicted from your rooms in L’manberg until further notice. Please pack up and leave immediately._

“This is just wrong,” he says aloud, further inspecting the note. There was no official seal of L’manberg on the paper - _he should know,_ he was the one that stamped every paper- and there were no signatures. It was too short to be formal and the handwriting was scribbled and uneven. Ranboo didn’t recognize it all.

Well, it would explain where Ghostbur went, but Ranboo wondered why he believed it. It was so obviously fake...

He wasn’t sure, and in any case, it wasn’t his problem. That thought pains him, but he couldn’t even track down the spectre if he wanted to.

Ranboo sets the note back down on the barrel and leans down further, popping open the lid to the storage unit. A singular cylindrical case sat inside, and when he pulled it out and peeked inside, he saw several papers. Ranboo vaguely recognized them, and when he pulled out a yellowing sheet and read it, he snorted. Yeah. These were definitely what he was looking for.

Ranboo glances back up at the barren fireplace, the sunken blue chair, and the tall bookcases. This place was deserted, and who knew if Ghostbur was going to come back.

The thought saddened him. A place so bright only to become abandoned. And on top of that, the only reason it was so empty was because of a fraud throwing out the tenant.

 _L’manberg is a.... mess,_ Ranboo thinks, standing up and opening the library door again, stepping back into the main room. He looks over each of the brewing stands, then checks the cupboards.

Oh, these were a lot of invisibility potions. Ranboo steals a few to keep in his inventory and closes the barrel again, before opening the main door and glancing back up at the water stream he entered through.

He did not want to go back through that, he realizes, and he glances to the left.

There were iron bars over an exit that led to open air.

Ranboo pulls out his pickaxe. Mining and replacing blocks were the better option to water, in his opinion, and he quickly mines a way through before squeezing through and replacing the blocks.

Now he’s stuck on the outside of the bars, and even though he’s outside Ranboo quickly realizes his predicament.  
There was no way down.

For the usual L’manberg inhabitant, they could probably jump in the water down below, but he literally just mined out of a wall to avoid water, and he couldn’t jump off the ledge without quite possibly breaking his legs. He didn’t even have a boat or a hay bale on him.

Ranboo glances around. On his left is a cliff, and on the right is open sky. Could he climb? He didn’t want to risk it.

As he looks around at all his possible options, an idea grows in his brain, and he tilts his head to the side. It might work. And if it didn’t, he was dead anyway.

Ranboo closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He was only ever able to do this when his adrenaline was running high, when his brain was in fight or flight and his basic instincts kicked in. He wasn’t sure how regular Endermen teleported. Could they do it on command? Was it something they channeled?

Ranboo takes a deep breath. _Maybe I need adrenaline,_ he thinks, and opens his eyes and looks down.

_I hope to Prime that this will work._

Ranboo jumps off the ledge, and time seems to slow. He’s falling through the air, green grass beneath him slowly approaching, and just as his eyes widen and he thinks, _I made a mistake,_ something stirs within him, that same feeling that ran unnoticed during his initial escape and all those times in Hypixel that he always got disqualified for.

He lets the purple magic envelop him, and suddenly he’s standing on the ground. Ranboo flings his hands out in anticipation, but he doesn’t fall, and when his breaths even, he realizes he’s standing back in the main square of L’manberg.

He just teleported!

Ranboo smiles and whoops softly, reveling in the glory of this moment. He could probably figure out how to teleport without endangering his life in the future, but right now he was going to celebrate his victory.

He glances up at the sky, trying to find the moon to gauge what time it was and perhaps how much time left he had on the potion, but all he sees is thick clouds, and he feels his smile drop slowly, and it slips altogether when he sees a fat drop of water fall onto the boardwalk and seep into the wood.

 _It’s raining,_ Ranboo realizes, just as the clouds break into a downpour.

“CRAP!” He shouts, and tries to ignore the sizzling he can hear on his skin as he breaks into a sprint, not even noticing the effects of the invisibility potion fade as he flings open the door to a random house and slams it closed behind him. He leans his arm against the sturdy spruce door, trying to withhold a whimper. Everything _hurt_ , and all he wanted was to crawl out of his skin or maybe pass out and die.

“Ranboo?” he hears a quiet voice behind him say, and he spins, gangly limbs smacking against the wall.

“Who- who’s there?” he asks, panicked, and rubs profusely at his eyes. A blonde man in a sweater is standing in front of him, hands held out placatingly in a kind gesture. “P-Phil?” he asks, his voice small.

“Ranboo? Are you alright?” Phil asks, and Ranboo slides down against the door, holding himself. He feels completely numb, and he shivers.

“D- do- do you have a towel?” he asks, shaking, and Phil blinks as though confused by the request before swiveling and opening all of his barrels and pulling out a washcloth.

“Here,” he says, bending down and offering it to the enderman hybrid, who snatches it a bit too harshly and starts rubbing it up and down his arms, trying to rid his skin of any remaining raindrops. The numb feeling doesn’t leave his limbs, and his shaking forces the cloth to drop out of Ranboo’s hand onto his lap.

“Ranboo, what happened?” Phil asks seriously, looking down at him, but he curls away from his gaze.

“I- please don’t kill me,” he mumbles, rubbing his arms up and down vigorously, trying to get rid of the searing pain that was _everywhere._ If he hadn’t drank dirty water, he _knew_ he wouldn’t be in this much pain from goddamn _rain._

“ _Kill_ you?” Phil asks, confused. “I wouldn’t do that, Ranboo.”

Ranboo’s eyes drift up to the older man carefully, and he looks back at the fireplace, every movement quiet. Phil asked him what happened, so he might as well say. “I, um. Well, I left L’manberg.”

“Yes, I noticed,” Phil says wryly, and Ranboo smirks grimly.

“The cabinet accused me of treason and I thought they were going to kill me.”

“You thought they were going to kill you?” Phil asks, horrified. “And you came _back?_ ” He isn’t forcing eye contact, just searching Ranboo’s face, but he still feels strangely violated.

“I wanted the national documents from Ghostbur’s library.”

“For what?”

“I-” Ranboo trails off, and he looks back up at Phil, then looks at his feet. “I don’t know. It was stupid.”

“I’m listening,” Phil says gently.

“I just thought...” he thinks, then says, “I thought that maybe I would be able to figure out what L’manberg stood for.” Phil cocked his head at Ranboo, a gesture for him to continue speaking.

“When I left, I went to Logsted, and I tried- I thought a lot about what L’manberg stood for. Tubbo exiled Tommy to prevent conflict, but then he tried killing Technoblade, and that- it didn’t make any sense to me. I don’t know... I just thought, maybe...” Ranboo shrugs. “I don’t know what I thought.”

Phil sits there for a moment, pondering his response, and Ranboo’s attention slowly drifts to the crackling of the fireplace in the background. He wondered what Phil got up to in house arrest. Probably reading; that’s what Ranboo would do, anyway.

“I think you’re very brave for trying to form your own opinions in this whole mess without being influenced by anyone,” Phil says, and Ranboo’s eyes flick back to him.

“I’m just-” he laughs nervously. “I’m not sure if I’m on... if I’m on the good side anymore.”

“There’s never been a good side,” Phil says and stands up. Ranboo stands up too, glancing out the window. Phil wouldn’t send him outside again, would he? He didn’t want to go back out there, he didn’t want to-

“You should stay in here and wait out the rain,” Phil says with a grimace, and Ranboo looks back at him, surprised.

“You’re- you’re helping me?” he asks, incredulous.

Phil smiles at him. “We’re both traitors to the government, might as well have company on a dreary night together.”

And despite everything, Ranboo smiles back.

_Went to l’manberg and got the papers. Ghostbur is evicted from his sewers. Started raining as i was walking back and i had to hole up with phil, we had a chat and i left in the morning. He’s waiting for techno to rescue him and then they’re going to stay in the winter house together. Feels wrong to lie to my lmanberg friends, but i dont have a choice. i'm gonna find out the truth when I get back_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: i have encountered a plot hole  
> me: time to pretend like i knew what i was doing the WHOLEEE time
> 
> thank you all SO much for your support on this fic, its mind blowing. reading your comments makes me so happy :]] cant wait for you to see what i have in store!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you all enjoy the final chapter! the support has been insane and im so grateful for you all. heres to a happy new year, and to what i make in the future!

Ranboo wakes up the next morning content.

It isn’t a new feeling, but as he sits up and rubs his eyes he realizes it’s not one he’s felt in a while. He doesn’t remember feeling like this since that morning weeks ago that he was inducted into the Butcher Army, and even that is just a quickly fading memory.

He sits there in his beach chair for a few more moments, savoring it, before he stands up and stretches, yawning. He turns around to look at the table, then picks up the cylindrical paper holder and pops the lid open.

“Do I need gloves for this?” he mumbles aloud. The papers aren’t all _that_ old, so maybe it would be safe without, but he still worried about putting oils on historical paper. 

He pulls out each paper and document, laying them flat on the table, before the container is completely emptied and he inspects his work. There were less papers than he was expecting, but to be fair, L’manberg didn’t have a very _traditional_ start, and it was a young country.

Ranboo takes a deep breath, sits down, and begins to read.

_I’ve now read (and cataloged, for fun) all of the national documents... how did these people start a country_

The sun has hardly passed across the sky when Ranboo finishes reading every paper, but he still feels so tired, and even worse, he doesn’t know what to do. All his hope, all his hard work, and he had _nothing._

He thought that reading the documents would cause a revelation; he thought he would find some great surprise, some great secret. Somewhere deep within Ranboo, he even wished that the documents would have done the work for him, for them to reveal something so life changing, so groundbreaking, he would be shattered to his core and he would finally understand all of the things he never did.

There was no great revelation. There was _nothing._

There was only him.

Ranboo was the only one who could make his own opinions, and he thinks back to what Phil said: _“I think you’re very brave for trying to form your own opinions in this whole mess without being influenced by anyone.”_

He groans and slides a hand through his hair, looking back down at the documents. Why did this have to be so hard? Had all his hard work just been a waste? Did he ruin this for himself? What was Ranboo supposed to do with all these stolen documents now, if he couldn’t even use them for something worthwhile?

He didn’t even know what a revelation would do for him. Did he _really_ think he could convince the cabinet to let him back in L’manberg just because of a new perspective? 

He couldn’t stay in L’manberg, he couldn’t stay in Logstedshire. He couldn’t stay _anywhere._

_I could take my chances back with Tubbo,_ he thinks. _We were friends. We could talk it out. I just want to go_ back.

Then, he pauses and tilts his head slightly. Did he, really? Did Ranboo really want to go back to L’manberg? A broken country with no citizens, no one but its own corrupt cabinet that extended its power wherever it laid its claws? Ranboo’s heart ached; he wished he could have seen it sooner so that he could have nipped the problem in the bud, so that he could have _fixed_ it.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. If he didn’t want to go back to L’manberg, there was one more option.

 _“Technoblade left a note,” Phil said casually. “He’s going to rescue me from house arrest.”_ _  
_

_“Really? Do you know when?”_ _  
_

_“No, I don’t. You could come with. I’m sure I could convince him.”_ _  
_

Ranboo blinks, his heart starting to pound in his ears. Could he...? Could he stay with Technoblade? The piglin hybrid who threatened to murder him if he didn’t return his armor and the one who distrusted him because he kind of arrested him? Ranboo didn’t have any more gear to give Techno, but maybe if he said that Phil vouched for him, maybe he could stay...

Ranboo takes another deep breath, then stands up and walks to his chest room. If he was going to the tundra, he needed more appropriate clothing.

_I’m walking to techno’s house, made a blanket and i dont have an umbrella for snowfall but hopefully this will work out._

Ranboo sets out the next morning.

He had woken up, checked all of his supplies, looked at everything one last time, and turned his back on it all. He didn’t have any attachment to Logsted; he had only stayed for two weeks, and those two weeks weren’t exactly the _worst_ weeks of his life, but they came pretty close. 

Ranboo thinks back on what the worst weeks of his life could have been; definitely pre-L’manberg, even before Hypixel, back when he was an orphan scrounging on the street for food. He shivers at the thought. At least L’manberg didn’t have a homeless population; that was _one_ good thing about having no citizens, he supposed. 

He gazes at every structure in the site one last time, and is overcome with a sudden sense of sadness. He could understand why Tommy came out of this place the way he did. Exile was never good for anyone.

As he walks through the plains, past the ruined portal and the village, as the ground becomes crunchier and the air colder, his mind wanders. He hadn’t left any of his items behind, his journal clutched in his hand and the L’manberg documents stored in their case and slung across his back. His tools were held in his inventory, as well as several carrots, water bottles, and the blanket he made. He hoped it was enough; the last time he had ventured into the arctic, there had been such a heavy snowfall Ghostbur almost started melting. Ranboo hoped there wouldn’t be a snowfall this time; he wasn’t sure how effective a blanket would be against it, and he didn’t want a repeat of his trip to L’manberg.

The trip to Technoblade’s cabin continues without incident. Ranboo finds himself getting colder, his fingertips starting to freeze, and he pulls out the blanket and wraps it around himself, trying to get warm. Why couldn’t Techno have chosen somewhere nice to live, like a mesa? _Much better climate,_ he thinks, teeth starting to chatter. 

The frozen grass slowly turns into snow covered ground, and every step Ranboo makes lets out a satisfying _crunch._ His pace is starting to slow, and that worries him, so he stops and marches in place. He puffs out his cheeks, trying to force some warmth into them, then continues on his journey. 

The terrain isn’t recognizable, and Ranboo can’t remember exactly where Techno lived, but this was the last hope he was riding out on. He tries to remember what it looked like, but all he can recall is _nighttime_ and _snowing._ He furrows his brow, trying to remember more, and the _crunch, crunch_ of his steps in the snow is the only sound that cracks the silence. 

_VILLAGE!_ He recalls suddenly, like a snap of the fingers. There was a village next to Techno’s house. Ranboo remembers a villager by Logsted saying something about a tundra town being directly to the west, and he pulls out a compass from his inventory and turns to the north, before adjusting his positioning to the west. Why didn’t he remember that earlier? Ranboo thinks, a little frustrated, but he can’t contain the newfound vigor in his step.

He keeps walking for twenty minutes before he stops again and shakes out his limbs. It had been a while since he first left, and he turns to look up at the sky. The sun was blocked out by thick clouds, and he shivers, tugging his blanket closer. If Ranboo guessed correctly, there would be a snowfall. At least he had prepared for the worst.

As he continued tramping through the snow, the barren, arctic wasteland started to gain more trees, and soon Ranboo was walking through a spruce forest. He looks up through the trees, and sure enough, it had begun to snow, fat flakes drifting lazily through the sky. Well, it wasn’t a blizzard, at least. Ranboo could almost appreciate the beauty of the snow covered forest if not for the fact that it was _freezing,_ and the thought makes him rub his arms to warm them _._

Back in Logsted, as a precaution, Ranboo had tucked wool into his shoes as an extra layer between his sock covered feet and the water of the snow when it inevitably melted through his shoes, and by now, he can feel the dampness through his socks. It didn’t hurt _terribly_ , but every step prickled, and he couldn’t wait for this trip to be over with. 

_It’s been too long,_ he thinks, squinting through the trees as he climbs a hill. _Did I walk past it? I knew I shouldn’t have..._ but he’s too tired to continue the thought. 

By the time Ranboo sees the smoke across the horizon, he’s shaking, cold to the bone. His eyes trail over the smoke, and he tries to speed up his pace, pushing through all of the trees until he breaks past them and sees the cabin of spruce and stone, a breath he didn’t know he was holding escaping past his lips.

“Found you,” he mumbles, hobbling down the hill and approaching the door unsteadily. He straightens his posture and knocks on the door, the thick wood hurting the knuckles on his numb hand. Ranboo shakes it out and looks down when the door opens, Tommy staring up at him with wide eyes.

“Hello,” he says weakly.

“R- Ranboo? TECHNO!” Tommy shouts, and Ranboo shivers. Techno... would he let him stay?

Technoblade appears behind Tommy, his face unreadable, but he pulls Ranboo in anyway, who doesn’t struggle. Ranboo stands inside, shivering, but Techno just crosses his arms at him.

“What are you doing here, Ranboo?” he says.

“I, um...” Ranboo murmurs, trailing off, unable to come up with an answer.

“Save the interrogation for after, Techno, the dude’s freezing to death!” Tommy snaps, and grabs Ranboo’s elbow and drags him to the fireplace. Ranboo sits down in front of it, but he still glances back at Techno, who’s staring at him. Tommy speaks again, and Ranboo’s attention is dragged back to him. “I can make you eggs, if you want. I got a chicken.”

“Y-you don’t have to do that,” Ranboo says, teeth chattering. Tommy gives him another blanket that was lying on the couch, and he takes it gratefully. “...What’d you name your chicken?”

“Her name’s Betty, and she’s awesome,” Tommy says proudly. “She almost bit my hand off when I tried taking an egg this morning.”

“That seems right,” Ranboo mumbles, and Tommy looks at him, before turning to Techno.

“This is how you treat hypothermia, right?”

“What?” Ranboo asks just as Techno sighs and says, “Let me see.”

Ranboo stiffens when Techno approaches, but Techno just kneels down next to him and asks, “Do you have any wet clothing on?”

Ranboo stares at him before the question registers, and he says, “My shoes.” He leans down to take them off, but his frozen fingers only scrabble at the laces uselessly. Techno unties them for him and takes them off, and Ranboo peels off his socks, revealing his white and black feet. He rubs them mindlessly to warm them up.

“Tommy, can you go upstairs and start a pot of hot chocolate?” Techno asks, and Tommy nods and darts to the ladder, climbing up, while Techno provides him with another blanket, watching him carefully. “How long were you out in the cold?”

Ranboo tries to think, recalling the sun’s position in the sky. “An- an hour, or something... I think.”

“Well, you’re shivering, so you probably only have mild hypothermia. The blanket was a smart move,” Techno says, standing up to sit on the couch, and Ranboo’s mood brightens.

They sit there in silence for a few minutes before the sound of stomping upstairs increases and Tommy shouts, “COCOA’S DONE!”

“Get the white mug!” Techno calls.

“SHUT UP, PIG BOY!!!”

Techno rolls his eyes and Ranboo giggles a little before he sees Tommy climb back down the ladder, who proceeds to hand Ranboo a huge blue mug with hot chocolate in it.

“Why did you use _that_ one?” Techno admonishes. 

_“Why did you use that one?"_ Tommy mocks in a high-pitched voice, then screams when Techno throws a pillow at him. Ranboo completely spaces out and slowly sips his beverage. 

“Is he dead?” Tommy asks, and Ranboo looks up at him. “Huh?” he asks, and Tommy wheezes.

“Are you feeling better?” Techno asks, and Ranboo’s gaze turns to him. Techno’s expression is neutral, but the tiniest bit of concern is shining in his eyes.

“Yeah, I am. Thank you,” he says honestly.

“Great. Now what are you doing here?” he asks, leaning forward.

Ranboo’s mind immediately blanks. What _was_ he doing here? He opens his inventory and pulls out his journal, flipping to the newest page. Oh. Right. 

He looks up at Tommy and Techno after he recalls enough information, then takes a deep breath. “The cabinet found out I gave you your armor back and they said it was treason and I thought I was going to be killed so I ran away to Logstedshire and that’s where I’ve been staying for the past two weeks but I can’t stay there anymore because it sucks,” he says, the words gushing out. The duo facing him only blink, before Tommy shouts, “WHAT THE HELL.”

“Well, you can’t stay here either,” Techno says, and Ranboo blanches while Tommy shouts _“WHAT THE HELL!”_ again.

“Why can’t I stay?” Ranboo asks just as Tommy demands, “Why can’t he stay?”

“I don’t need _another_ kid staying at my house,” Techno says gruffly, standing up. “He can take his chances with the Badlands.” 

“Please,” Ranboo says quietly. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Techno looks down at him, a single eyebrow raised, prompting him to continue. Ranboo doesn’t know what else to add on, so he just decides to open his mouth and say what he felt.

“I thought L’manberg was about freedom, ‘cause that’s what the song said. It was created to escape from tyranny,” and Ranboo looked up at Tommy as though for confirmation, but the boy didn’t say anything. “But now that’s all L’manberg is,” Ranboo continues, “it’s so focused on revenge it didn’t even know it lost its own people. L’manberg’s government is failing, and- and-” his voice breaks and he stops.

Techno stands there for a few moments, seemingly shocked into silence, before he asks slowly, “Why should I trust you?”

“Because...” Ranboo starts, then thinks. “Because I don’t betray my friends.”

“Come on, Techno,” Tommy urges, and the both of them are watching Techno as he contemplates his choices. “Just let him stay.”

“Fine,” Techno says with a heavy sigh. “You can stay with-”

“I am _not_ letting him room with me,” Tommy retorts. “That is _my_ room.” 

“You literally dug beneath my basement.”

“It’s my room.”

“Fine,” Techno huffed. “The attic, then.”

Ranboo is too stunned to ask about how spacious the attic was, and if he could actually _stand_ in it. He was actually going to stay here. He wasn’t going to be alone...

“I’ll show him,” Tommy says, and tries to grab him by the elbow again to drag him upstairs, but cannot locate it due to the sheer amount of blankets on Ranboo. He doesn’t shrug them off for fear of freezing to death, but he stands up and follows Tommy up the ladder anyway.

“That was the living room down there,” Tommy explains once they climb high enough to see the next room. “This is the kitchen, and also where we eat. Down there is the basement and storage, and deeper is my room,” he says, pointing. “Up here is the attic.” Tommy continues climbing up and Ranboo follows him.

The attic is small, and when Ranboo stands fully he can feel his hair brush against the ceiling. To his surprise, there are bookshelves... _everywhere._ The bookcases are overflowing, and a wide grin splits his face. He wondered what kind of literature Techno collected. 

Tommy snorts upon seeing his expression. “Oh, you’re a nerd, aren’t you?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Ranboo asks, tearing his gaze away from an interesting pile of encyclopedias and looking down at Tommy, blankets slowly falling off his shoulders. He absentmindedly wonders if he should pick them back up, but he doesn’t act on it.

Tommy snorts again. “Nothing, bud.” He looks around once more, then shrugs and says, “Well, there’s an enchanting table. But that’s all there is up here. You’re going to have to sleep on the floor, unless the chair is comfortable.”

“Chair?” Ranboo asks, and Tommy points at a plush navy chair in the corner. It looked exactly like the one in Ghostbur’s library. _Maybe it’s a set,_ he thinks. _That’s cute._

The two of them stand there for a few more moments, the silence slowly becoming awkward, before Tommy opens his mouth and asks, “So... how’s Tubbo?”

Ranboo looks down at the other boy, surprised, then his stomach drops when he remembers what Tubbo had done at Logstedshire. “I...” he stops, and deliberates between telling the truth or not. “I haven’t seen him lately, but he misses you.”

“Does he?” Tommy snorts, looking incredibly hurt behind a mask of disinterest.

Ranboo searches his face, before he opens the pocket in his suit jacket and pulls out a shattered compass; it looks exactly like the one in his inventory, but it gleams with a purple sheen, and Ranboo doesn’t have to open it to know exactly what it says.

Tommy pales slightly, and he takes the compass out of Ranboo’s outstretched hand, popping it open. He stares at it for a few seconds, before he looks back up at Ranboo and says in the smallest of voices, “He left it behind? He doesn’t care?”

“That’s not it at all,” Ranboo says, shifting uncomfortably. “He... one night in Logsted, he came by and he just knelt in front of the giant pillar and cried. When he left, this was buried in the dirt. I- he thinks you’re dead, Tommy.”

Tommy just stares at him for a few moments, mouth open slightly in shock. Ranboo glances away, anxious from the eye contact, and Tommy looks back down at the compass.

“Did he... say anything?”

Ranboo tries to think; he remembered the actions, but less so the words. “I- I think he apologized. And he said something really important, but I can’t remember what it was.”

“Can you try and remember?” Tommy demands.

Ranboo shrinks back. “I don’t know, Tommy. I’m sorry.”

Suddenly, Tommy looks so very small, and Ranboo feels awful. They were all just _children._ They were forced to fight a war they didn’t even want to be involved in. What did Dream gain from Tubbo exiling Tommy? Ranboo didn’t get it.

_Wait._

“There is one more thing,” Ranboo says, and Tommy looks up at him. “It- it doesn’t have to do with Tubbo. But my first day at Logsted, I saw Dream. He... he was looking for you.”

“Oh, that’s perfect!” Tommy says, straightening and looking back down at the compass. “I mean, I think.”

“I don’t trust him,” Ranboo says, voice quickening. “You should- just- just be careful.”

“I’m always careful,” Tommy scoffs, staring at him. “Was there anything else you wanted to say?”

“Uh,” Ranboo says, and Tommy claps his hands together.

“Well. I’m not making lunch for you. Get it yourself or something, whenever you’re hungry,” and Tommy turns to climb back down the ladder, but he hesitates and glances back at Ranboo. “Thank you- for the compass,” he says, and Ranboo only blinks and nods, crossing his arms, and then he’s left alone.

He did it... he _did_ it. He’s staying with Technoblade. 

That was... weird to think about.

Ranboo looks out the window, and the gray clouds have thinned out in the time he’s been inside, sun shining brightly on the snow. That’s right- it was hardly late morning. He clasps his hands together, checking how cold they are, then picks the blankets up from where they fell on the floor and walks over to the plush navy chair, sitting down in it and looking at his new room.

The wall with the ladder and the one he was looking out now had huge windows, and to his left, there was an entire wall of just bookcases. Ranboo glanced to the right, and he could see a heavy spruce desk with a lamp and a spruce chair, while a map of the known lands was hung on the wall, along with a dresser below it. An enchanting table was pushed against one of the bottom shelves of bookcases. There’s a layer of dust on all of the furniture, he notices; he should get a duster. Ranboo stands up and opens the dresser, but there are only extra blankets inside, and a lot of them. He supposed it was a bit of a necessity, what with them being in the arctic and all.

The desk only has a few sheets of blank paper stacked on top of it, and Ranboo bends down to turn on the lamp, before he turns to the map. It looked handmade, and Ranboo wondered distantly if Techno made it himself- cartography always looked too hard to attempt. He would never be able to get the proportions right.

Ranboo looks closer at the map, and lets out an excited noise when he recognizes L’manberg and the surrounding area. Even the docks were marked!

He turns to look at the bookcases, the last thing to look at before he could settle in, and when he walks over his heart shatters a little bit at how awfully the books are organized. Why wasn’t Techno’s cataloging system as respectable as he was?

 _Maybe that could be a project,_ Ranboo thinks excitedly. _Cataloging more books._

He looks back at the desk, then pulls a piece of wool out of his inventory and walks over to it, holding up the sheets of paper and wiping down the desk, before he moved on to the dresser and wiped that down too. Ranboo moves back to the desk and sets down the case of historical documents he had been carrying on his back, as well as his journal, before he sits down heavily in the chair and pulls out his pencil, opening his journal and starting to write.

_I walked to Techno’s house and he’s letting me stay. I gave Tommy Tubbo’s compass_

His pencil stalls. That was it? All of this, and that was all he could come up with?

Ranboo takes a deep breath, then leans down and continues writing.

_When I first came to this land, I didn’t know what I expected. I had heard stories of constant war, but I was used to that in Hypixel. I constantly had to fight my way to the top there, so why would it be any different here?_ _  
_

_The difference is that now I care. I care about these people, I care about their stories. These are people that have been through so much, and they matter._ _  
_

_L’manberg is a special place. It’s a country built from war, which in turn means that war is all it knows. I never really knew what L’manberg ever stood for, but now, I think I figured it out. Back when the country was first founded, the revolutionaries fought their battles with words, not weapons. Their ideals were based in fairness, and they separated from Dream’s government as a means to escape corruption, brutality, and tyranny, and they fought a war to prove it. They fought to prove that they, the people, mattered. L’manberg was a safe haven, an escape from oppression, and the people were what made it special._ _  
_

_But gone now are the old times. The nation isn’t the same anymore. The government became controlling, and it became the very thing that the originals who made the country were trying to escape from. It prioritizes power over its own citizens._

_I think, fundamentally, L’manberg is still good. It’s so very broken, but it’s good at heart. However, the government needs reforms. The cabinet needs to acknowledge that growth is more important than vengeance. The government is what is making the nation fail, and it either needs to be reformed, or replaced completely. People are so much more important than power._ _  
_

_As for me, I still care about it so much. L’manberg isn’t much of a home to me, but it could be, and that’s what I’m hoping for. Once upon a time, I asked myself what my ideals were, and I couldn’t come up with an answer, but I know now._ _  
_

_I will never, ever, prioritize a country over my friends. Wealth and power mean nothing to me in comparison. Lives are so much more precious than land, and I owe everyone who helps me an enormous debt. Human kindness is a thing that I don’t see much of, but when granted, it is wonderful._ _  
_

_Kindness is important, and it’s so very necessary, now more than ever. L’manberg used to be a special place, and it can be again, with a lot of work. Let's start making it happen._


End file.
